Communication networks are widely used today; the variety of networks includes the Internet, wide-area networks (WANs), local-area networks (LANs), telephony networks, and wireless networks. The importance of network monitoring and testing is growing as well as the requirements for related methods and equipment. The monitoring of the networks requires accurate knowledge of network topology. For example, the information about network topology enables a Network Management System (NMS) to correlate pieces of end-to-end diagnostics and monitoring information to identify failed components and performance bottlenecks. Furthermore, higher-level network management functions, such as root-cause-analysis (RCA), service-level-agreements (SLA) monitoring, and network failure impact analysis, can be done via the analysis performed on top of the monitored topology.
The technologies in network management for topology monitoring typically rely on the ability of the NMS to query every node in the network to discover network links and determine current states of the network links. For example, a network management system would discover the topology of the network by a BFS (Breadth First Search) process, i.e., iterating the process of querying a node's adjacency table that lists its neighbors and visiting its neighbors until no more new nodes (or links) can be discovered. However, this approach requires participation of all the nodes, i.e. having related protocol software installed and configured to cooperate. Conventional methods of mapping network topology also have the scalability problem.
Accordingly, there is a need to mitigate the disadvantages of existing mapping systems and methods and to provide a novel method and a system for mapping network topology. In particular, a need exists for a system and method of discovering network topology by an independent tool, and by a method transparent to the user.